6-30-2010 Nebraska:
The writer, of Omaha, is a lawyer.
Foreign travelers are occasionally bemused after observing our society so obsessed with sex. That goes for pornography, too. If you have cable television, you can dial up soft-core porn any night of the week. For hard-core porn on cable via pay-per-view, you can dial that up readily, too, any time of the day or night.
Everyone knows the joke about the hapless fellow who sits alone in his basement at night in his underwear dialing up dirty pictures on the Internet.
What most people don’t realize is that you can go to federal prison, for a minimum of five years, if you’re looking at the wrong type of dirty pictures on the Internet.
Let’s call this person “Arthur.” He’s a 55-year-old white male. He’s in a long-term marriage. He has a good job. His kids are grown and gone.
In recent years, Arthur has developed a bad habit. After his wife goes to bed, he goes down to the basement, sits in front of his computer and dials up dirty pictures on the Internet. Arthur has developed a fetish for viewing pictures of naked children.
Now, nobody defends this. Arthur’s images come from out of state. He doesn’t distribute them, sell them, share them on any file-sharing program or display them to any other person. He tells nobody. It’s his secret. He realizes that he should seek professional help but doesn’t.
Arthur is probably not aware that he has violated a federal law prohibiting the reception of child pornography. If a zealous FBI agent (who may be surfing the Internet for real sexual predators) discovers Arthur’s habit, and he is indicted in federal court, he faces a mandatory minimum of five years in federal prison (with no parole).
This kind of situation has sparked controversy. Not because anyone defends the principle of watching child porn, but because many people, including federal judges, believe people like Arthur don’t deserve to spend five or more years in jail. In other words, people like Arthur need treatment, not imprisonment.
Recently, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Brooklyn, one of the nation’s most distinguished and longest-serving federal trial judges, was profiled in the New York Times. Judge Weinstein is grappling with this very issue.
The case before Judge Weinstein involved Pietro Polizzi, a married father of five, who kept a collection of 5,000 graphic pictures in his garage. In federal court, Mr. Polizzi, if convicted, faced a minimum of five years in federal prison.
Judge Weinstein stated: “I don’t approve of child pornography, obviously.” But he added that those who merely view the images but do not purchase or sell them present, in his view, no threat to children. Said the judge: “We’re destroying lives unnecessarily. At the most, they should be receiving treatment and supervision.”
The article itself noted:
There is little public sympathy for collectors of child pornography. Yet across the country, an increasing number of federal judges have come to their defense, criticizing changes to sentencing laws that have effectively quadrupled their average prison term in the past decade.
A recent federal appeals court observed that federal sentencing guidelines “actually punish some forms of direct sexual contact with minors more leniently than possession or distribution of child pornography.”
Child protection advocates would argue that those like Arthur or Polizzi who merely view these images nevertheless fuel the child pornography industry. That view is worthy of due consideration.
Polizzi went to trial and was convicted. Then Judge Weinstein did a very unusual thing. He asked the 12 jurors if their verdict would have been different if they had known before the verdict that the punishment was a minimum of five years in jail. (Federal jurors are not told about possible penalties.) Five jurors “spoke up against imprisonment. Two said they would have changed their votes.”
The Polizzi case remains ongoing.
It is unclear whether “sexting” (teens passing around sexy pictures of themselves on cell phones) will eventually be prosecuted under this federal statute.
Whether Arthur is a criminal or not, we can and should, as thoughtful citizens, make the distinction between someone who belongs in a federal prison and someone who belongs in a psychiatrist’s office. ..Source.. Mike Nelsen
June 30, 2010
Midlands Voices: Child-porn cases are not all alike
Midlands Voices: Danger inherent in all child porn
6-30-2010 Nebraska:
The writer is a retired Nebraska State Patrol sergeant and creator of the Nebraska State Patrol’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit.
I am writing in response to a June 20 Midlands Voices article, “Child-porn cases are not all alike.” As a 25-year veteran of law enforcement, I take exception to most of the statements by the writer — Mike Nelsen, a defense attorney.
From 1999 until my retirement last summer, I led the efforts against online child exploitation in Nebraska, including the manufacture, distribution and possession of child pornography. In addition, I am a past chairman of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force. In this capacity, I have worked with many subject matter experts in this field.
Mr. Nelsen referred to “Arthur, a 55-year-old white male. He’s in a long-term marriage. He has a good job. His kids are grown and gone.” He described someone who matches the statistics of people I arrested in my 10 years of conducting and supervising these investigations.
The typical person we arrested for these crimes ranged from age 19 to 60, someone with good job, who was educated, etc. These people were not what we wanted them to be — a creepy, scary individual who fit a societal picture of a predator.
Mr. Nelsen then stated, “Arthur is probably not aware that he has violated a federal law prohibiting the reception of child pornography. If a zealous FBI agent (who may be surfing the Internet for real sexual predators) discovers Arthur’s habit, and he is indicted in federal court, he faces a mandatory minimum of five years in federal prison (with no parole).”
Mr. Nelsen thus excuses the behavior of Arthur as ignorance of the law and being the “victim” of an overzealous FBI agent. He minimizes the possession of “images” of children as young as newborns engaged in sexual acts with adults as a “habit.”
I doubt that Mr. Nelsen has interviewed children who have been molested and had their innocence ripped from them by a predator who did it for the “images.” “Arthur” chose to participate in this behavior while consciously knowing the ramifications if he were caught and convicted.
Mr. Nelsen cites one judge’s opinion. In it, Judge Jack B. Weinstein stated: “I don’t approve of child pornography, obviously.” But he added that those who merely view the images but do not purchase or sell them present, in his view, no threat to children. Said the judge: “We’re destroying lives unnecessarily. At the most, they (these offenders) should be receiving treatment and supervision.”
I vehemently disagree with this opinion, as do experts in this field. In November 2000, Dr. Andres E. Hernandez, director of the Sex Offender Treatment Program for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, presented the results of his study of child pornography offenders. This study, among other things, explored the correlation between child pornography offenses and child molestation.
Dr. Hernandez’s data indicate that the majority of the people in his study who were convicted of child pornography offenses actually molested significant numbers of children without detection by the criminal justice system.
I don’t believe that all people who possess child pornography are molesters. However, more and more children in our state have been victimized by people who also possess these horrendous memorials to the rape of a child.
Attorneys like Mr. Nelsen are quick to describe child pornography as “images.” This lessens the impact on the judge and jury of what their client really was searching for and downloading from the Internet.
Child pornography is not innocent images. It is the documentation and memorialization of the rape of a child. It is posted on the Internet for all to see and to endure for all time. These violent rape “images” are not of a child in a foreign land or a “virtual” child but a child we know — a neighbor, niece or nephew, our son or daughter!
Are these offenders our neighbors, co-workers and friends? Absolutely, and we give them free reign to our children while we’re unaware that they get sexual gratification, in the privacy of their own home, in watching five-minute videos of a 4-year-old being sodomized.
The views of people like Mr. Nelsen and Judge Weinstein are the reason I toiled over retiring and not keeping up the fight to protect our kids. One statistic Mr. Nelsen didn’t present is that the majority of child pornography in the world consists of unidentified children who have not been rescued from this abuse.
I pray that one of the “images” is not someone Mr. Nelsen knows. ..Source.. Scott Christensen
Sex Offenders Meet Media
6-30-2010 Washington DC:
A group of former sex offenders and experts in the field of sexual offense met with members of the press Monday, following the 2nd Annual Conference of Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL). RSOL seeks to reform or repeal legislation like the Adam Walsh Act, which has a current deadline for implementation of July 1st but has only been completely adopted by 4 states.
Surprisingly RSOL does not seek for the immediate abolishment of the Sex Offender Registry but for a more directed approach to Registration and other sex offender related laws. According to Dr. Chrysandi Leon, University of Delaware, Professor of Sociology and an Expert on Sex Offender recidivism who presented at the conference, “the limited resources of law enforcement are being diluted by the blanket registration of all sex offenders.”
“Credible statistical studies over the last 15 years “since the registry was implement show that “it has had no impact of the recidivism rate.” We can go back to studies from the 1940’s on, long before the registry was implemented, and show that the rate of offenses has remained remarkably consistent over the intervening years.
RSOL advocates a more directed and individualized approach to registration using scientifically based data to identify those offenders who pose a significant treat to society and who are truly “dangerous.” Right now it is impossible for parents or even law enforcement to accurately determine an offender’s potential risk because of labels such as “sexually violently predator” which are blanketedly applied to all offenders who have committed a specific set of offenses rather that using individualized assessment to apply that designation. Having over 700,000 people on the registry nation-wide makes it difficult for law enforcement to narrow the field quickly when a child goes missing.
“We are as concerned about the safety of children as anyone else” says Kelly Piercy, a former offender, and chairman of Georgians for Reform, but “we don’t believe that the current legislation is effective in doing so, it wastes resources and punishes those who are trying to reintegrate as productive citizens.”
Interestingly several children both of non-offender presenters and children of former offenders attended and roamed freely about the conference seemingly without fear of any kind.
Besides Dr. Leon, and Piercy other presenters at the conference included: J.Tom Morgan, former prosecutor and sex offender registry sponsor from Georgia who now states that “the registry no longer serves the purposes for which it was created;” Norman A. Pattis, Connecticut defense attorney, Nancy M. Steele, PhD, a Clinical Psychologist and sex offender treatment specialist, and Rev. James L. Powell, PhD, DD, a Methodist Minister whose Atlanta- based church welcomes sex offenders but under strict perimeters. Powell is also a licensed clinical psychologist and regularly counsels with former sex offenders. “There is much that the church and other community based organizations can do to mentor and help former sex offenders who want to reform,” thus increasing the net of safety that we all seek when dealing with those who have previously offended, particularly when the offense involves children.”
Another presenter Mary Duval of Oklahoma, CEO of SOSEN, another sex offender advocacy group, became vehement in her fight for change, when her teenaged son Ricky was convicted of having sex with a younger teenaged girl. At that time there were no “Romeo and Juliet” laws which exempt consensual teenage sex from prosecution. Duval’s lobbying efforts help create these laws. Though completely blind, Duval actively lectures and campaigns throughout the United States, she also co-hosts weekly radio shows on ARC Talk Radio which focus on human rights and sex offender issues.
The conference concluded Monday after concentrated lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill. Portions of the Conference were recorded and links will soon be available online. These and other information about RSOL are available at their national website www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org . ..Source.. by Michael Machinatious
Taking Risks
6-30-2010 National:
As the parent of an “almost grown” teenager, we’ve learned that many teens often take unnecessary risks because they believe they are untouchable and immortal. A new study out this month confirms some teens also are taking big risks online.
Entitled
“The Secret Online Lives of Teens,” the study reveals
dangerous behaviors and online trends that offer a revealing peak at just how much our kids risk when they interact online, and one expert believes it’s more than just a wake-up call.
A release from Rachel Friedman, print campaign manager
for News and Experts
in Clearwater, Florida, explains the study, conducted by Harris Interactive for McAfee, asked 955 American teens (including 593 aged 13-15 and 362 aged 16-17) about their attitudes on Internet privacy.
The results are troubling for any parents of teenagers.• 69 percent of teens freely divulged their physical location
• 28 percent chatted with strangers
Of those who chatted with strangers, defined as people they do not know in the offline world:
• 43 percent shared their first name
• 24 percent shared their email address
• 18 percent posted photos of themselves
• 12 percent posted their cell phone number
What’s more, girls make themselves targets more often than boys: 32 percent of the girl respondents indicated they chat with strangers online vs. 24 percent of boy respondents, according to the survey.
Mary Kay Hoal, a concerned mom and global media expert who addressed her Internet safety issues by creating a social network exclusively for kids and teens – www.yoursphere.com – believes that this is more than just a wake-up call for parents and teens.
“This study is Pearl Harbor in the war against Internet predators,” she said. “While the headline always changes from cyber bullies to privacy issues, what remains constant, and will continue to, is the risky behavior teens can participate in. If you don’t want your kids participating in certain behaviors offline, why would you permit them online? If you tell them not to talk to strangers at the mall, why allow it on the Internet? Parents need to take notice now, and they need to teach their kids about the dangers of predators. It’s very real.”
Hoal is a proud wife and mother of five children (both biological and adopted, ranging in age from 6 to 19 years old).
She faces the same challenges every parent does. After researching the disturbing landscape of social networking sites — including endless inappropriate content and thousands of predators targeting youth — she conceived and founded Yoursphere.com, a free and positive place for kids and teens online as well as YoursphereForParents.com, where parents can find tools and information to create a safety-first experience for their families.
She has been studying this issue for more than four years, having created Yoursphere as a response to her own daughter establishing profiles behind her back on social networking sites.
Her goal is to create a positive place for kids and teens that offers all the best the Internet has to offer, without the dangers of predators, bullies and others who seek to use the anonymity of the Internet to victimize children.
“As parents, we need to do three things right now,” she said. “We need to learn about the online dangers for kids and teach our kids about them, just as we’d talk to them about drugs, sex, learning to drive a car or ride a bike safely. Next, we need to show our kids how to protect their online and offline privacy, so the predators and bullies are less capable of taking advantage of them. Finally, we need to set up a set of rules for our kids for their online lives that match their rules for their offline lives. The most effective litmus test is this: If the activity or behavior in question is inappropriate offline, then it is inappropriate online, as well. The combination of anonymity and technology that exists online can create a wide variety of hazards for teens, getting in the way of all the good things that exist for them on the Internet. We need to be able to use basic, common sense safety guidelines to help clear that path.” ..Source.. Paula I. Bryant
ACTION ALERT: Concerns with Supp. Guidelines - Section I (B Internet Identifiers) Part-3
UPDATED: New..6-30-2010 Washington DC:
PROBLEM: Facebook and other social networking websites have become this era's way of communicating and obtaining all sorts of information as well as political information. Government agencies and lawmakers have established accounts on social networking websites asking for the general public to follow them, hence obtain much needed information from these political sources. Even the Department of Justice (who has issued the Supplemental Guidelines) has an account on Facebook (lower right hand column -Stay Connected-), and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House also has social network accounts.
Congress enacts the Adam Walsh Act and the Kid's Act, together which mandate that, registered sex offenders hand over Internet Identifiers or suffer further punishment. These laws then establish a "checking system" (a system containing all RSOs Internet Identifiers) by which social networking websites may use to find out if any of their customers are RSOs, which they then close their accounts. Clearly this "checking system" operates under the color of law. Social networking websites, open to the general public, may not discriminate and are subject to lawsuits (1983 and/or 1985(3) actions) if they do, and esp. when acting under the color of law.
The Kid's Act establishes that, if a social networking website (SNS) removes a RSO based on the "checking system," the SNS must first advise the RSO that they have a right to challenge denial of access to the SNS. Other than those words in the Kid's Act there is no Grievance system by which RSOs may grieve such denials. And, there is nothing in the Kid's Act to advise RSOs that they have these rights. Without this grievance system the US Attorney General has no way to know if the SNS is complying with requirements of the "checking system" and cannot punish the SNS according to a Kid's Act provision (Suspend use of the checking system for failure to comply with other Kid's Act requirements. 42 USC 16915b(b)(5) and (c)(2)(C).
The Kid's Act then stipulates that, no lawsuit may be brought against SNS (or their directors or employees) unless they have violated another section of the Kid's Act (42 USC 16915b(c)(B) "Intentional, Reckless or other Misconduct" specifics omitted). This -no lawsuit- provision prevents RSOs (and their family members who also use the same computer) from access to the courts to assert their recognized rights. Congress, by the Kid's Act blocking court access, has violated the Separations of Powers doctrine by enacting this -no access to courts- provision.
Details follow:
In the Federal Register (5-14-2010) is the FULL text of the NEW Proposed Supplemental Guidelines. I will be addressing POINT based on the following from the Kid's Act.The Kid's Act: 42 USC 16915b Sec. 3. Checking System for Social Networking Websites: (pgs 3 and 5)
.......
(b) QUALIFICATION FOR USE OF SYSTEM.—A social networking website seeking to use the system shall submit an application to the Attorney General which provides— .....(5) a description of policies and procedures to ensure that—(A) any individual who is denied access to that website on the basis of information obtained through the system is promptly notified of the basis for the denial and has the ability to challenge the denial of access; and ....
(c) SEARCHES AGAINST THE SYSTEM.— .....(2) AUTHORITY OF ATTORNEY GENERAL TO SUSPEND USE.— The Attorney General may deny, suspend, or terminate use of the system by a social networking website that— .......(C) fails to comply with the procedures required under subsection (b)(5); or ....
(5) LIMITATION ON LIABILITY.—(A) IN GENERAL.—A civil claim against a social networking website, including any director, officer, employee, parent, contractor, or agent of that social networking website, arising from the use by such website of the National Sex Offender Registry, may not be brought in any Federal or State court.
(B) INTENTIONAL, RECKLESS, OR OTHER MISCONDUCT.—
Subparagraph (A) does not apply to a claim if the social networking website, or a director, officer, employee, parent, contractor, or agent of that social networking website—(i) engaged in intentional misconduct; or
(ii) acted, or failed to act—(I) with actual malice;
(II) with reckless disregard to a substantial risk of causing injury without legal justification; or
(III) for a purpose unrelated to the performance of any responsibility or function described in paragraph (3).
All RSOs -in spite of convictions- are entitled to First Amendment right of "Free Speech" and anonymous speech ( McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission 514 U.S. 334 (1995)) as well as anonymous online speech ( Doe v. Shurtleff, 2008 WL 4427594 (U.S. Dist Court, the District of Utah 2008) and ACLU of Ga v. Miller, 977 F. Supp. 1228 (N.D. Ga 1997)). (Cited from an earlier commentary)
In the earlier commentary the issues were, the absence of a grievance system and no Guidelines controls to prevent use of Internet Identifiers to monitor Internet usage, but here the issue is: Access to courts to attack the actual "checking system" as itself, as unconstitutional. The Kid's Act actually has a clause preventing access to courts for all but certain claims, and forecloses this one, that the "checking system" -under the color of law- is discriminatory and unconstitutional.
It is likely that this claim should have been brought up by RSOs when the Kid's Act was enacted, but remember, it was FAST TRACKED which prevented any commentary at that time. It is very possible that the SMART Office is unable to do anything about this claim, but since they are required to address whatever is raised in opposition to the Supp. Guidelines, the claim below sets the groundwork for a future lawsuit should a lawyer wish to take on the task.
So, while this commentary is more of a notice to the RSO family and Advocates, it can set the SMART Office in motion to address the claim, if no more than, they say it cannot be addressed. That alone is groundwork for courts -who have been foreclosed from hearing issues- and may use to open the door and say, courts have jurisdiction and that the Kid's Act is -as claimed- unconstitutional. Only a lawyer would know if this is true. However, RSOs must use every opportunity to voice their opinions, this is one.Note: To get everything into a comment that needs to be there, the following suggested comment has been carefully worded so that it DOES NOT violate the Regulations.gov 2,000 character limit. The comment is 1,984 characters including spaces, so if you modify it, be careful lest you violate the 2,000 limit.Accordingly, an appropriate comment might go like this:OAG Docket No. 134
To Whom It May Concern:
Acknowledgement forms are used to prove the agency has complied with due process (notice of registrant obligations). see Supplemental Guidelines (SG) "The acknowledgment forms signed by sex offenders regarding their registration obligations are ....definitive proof of such knowledge." FR 75 at 27365.
The Kid's Act (KA) identifies a registrant's right to challenge when denied access to a social networking site (SNS)(42 USC 16915b(b)(5)). But, forms fail to notify registrants of that (forms must function for obligations and rights), and the SG fail to establish any grievance system for improper denials. The KA fails to acknowledge need for a grievance system, and further denies registrants access to courts state and federal (42 USC 16915b(c)(5)(A)) for any claims related to the SNS use of the National Sex Offender Registry (includes the checking system) not identified in the KA (42 USC 16915b(c)(5)(B))(Intentional, Reckless, or other misconduct).
Registrants -in spite of any convictions- have 1st Amend. right of "Free Speech" and anonymous speech (McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission 514 U.S. 334 (1995)) as well as anonymous online speech (Doe v. Shurtleff, 2008 WL 4427594 (U.S. Dist Court, the District of Utah 2008) and ACLU of Ga v. Miller, 977 F. Supp. 1228 (N.D. Ga 1997)). And, registrants DO NOT lose their "rights of action" (42 USC 1983 and/or 1985 etc. or state equivalents) by virtue of being a registrant, nor can Congress or the states divest registrants of those "rights of action" for simply being a registrant in a sex offender registry. Such clearly violates ex post facto prohibitions.
Registrants need, and SG must provide a system to exhaust all administrative remedies -state and federal- before presenting claims to courts, including claims beyond the limitations set by KA (42 USC 16915b(c)(5)(B)). "Right of court actions" cannot be denied for simply being a sex offender registrant!
Thank you.WHERE TO POST COMMENTS:
OK, are your comments ready? Or, above are "suggested comments" (background color is yellow), you can use if you wish, but each must be a separate comment on Regulations.govSo click here:Remember, you can submit a comment as "Anonymous," no personal information is required.
Read carefully so that your comment will appear as "Anonymous."
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#docketDetail?R=OJP-2010-0001
Look on the lower left where it says "Comment Due 7-13-10 11:59 PM" just click on that and enter what you have prepared, or the above suggested comments, remember to copy each as a separate comment.END OF POST
June 29, 2010
White House Preparing National Online ID Plan
Is anonymity about to be a thing of the past? Obama may have forgotten the U.S. Supreme court ruling on anonymous free speech.6-29-2010 Washington DC:
The proposed system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the web at the transactional level will require an identity ecosystem.
The Obama administration is set to propose a new system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the Web. The online authentication and identity management system would be targeted at the transactional level -- for example, when someone logs into their banking website or completes an online e-commerce purchase.
Making such a system effective, however, will require creating an "identity ecosystem," backed by extensive public/private cooperation, said White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, delivering the opening keynote speech at the Symantec Government Symposium 2010 in Washington on Tuesday.
"This strategy cannot exist in isolation," he said. "It's going to take all of us working together." Furthermore, "we should not have to dramatically change the way we do business -- this should be a natural path forward," he said.
That path forward will hinge on a new draft of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (PDF), due to be released Friday for the first time to the public, for a three-week comment period. Formerly known as the National Strategy for Secure Online Transactions, the report offers specific strategy and implementation recommendations, and may also recommend more sweeping policy and privacy changes.
The report builds on the Obama-commissioned Cyberspace Policy Review, which analyzed the government's information and communications infrastructure defensive capabilities. One of the report's recommendations was to "build a cybersecurity-based identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties interests, leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies for the nation."
Simply issuing a Web-friendly biometric identification card to everyone in the country, of course, wouldn't necessarily make anyone or anything more secure, including online transactions. As the report also notes, to be effective, security tools and technology must be complemented by education. "There is always a necessity to do awareness and education of the end user," said Schmidt. "But you're not trying to teach the end user how to be a security expert."
InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on energy-efficient government data centers. Download the report here (registration required). ..Source.. Mathew J. Schwartz, Information Week
What's Happening in the World of Sex Offender Issues?
6-29-2010 National:
A few items to report:
NEW Supplemental Guidelines: Folks please remember the deadline for comments is 7-13-2010 11:59 PM and not a second later! In case you haven't read why and what folks should be commenting on, see SORNA: New Supplemental Guidelines.At the end of last week a reader mentioned something which is requiring a new Commentary which will be in a day or two. This one is quite important and deals with Congress preventing folks (that includes registrants and their families) from going to court over the use of the DOJ "Checking System" -under certain circumstances-, which if folks remember, that is the system used by social networking sites to, errrrr, kick registrants off their websites; clearly a system operating under the color of law. More in the new commentary.
National Issues: For some time now I have provided folks with a review and summary of bills in Congress affecting sex offenders. In addition folks can find various news reports and other articles on my Research & News Blog. I have also provided other speciality blogs dedicated to special subjects related to sex offenders and the harm caused them by today's laws, and vigilantism subtle and otherwise.Today I am announcing a NEW blog which is being added to the family of blogs. It is "Congress, Courts and National Legislation." The focus of the blog is simple "Whats Happening in Washington DC that Affects Sex Offenders and Sex Offenses." All national news, articles etc. will be posted there; national is its focus.
A second focus is to be a "learning Resource" for persons who want to get involved -in these issues- (esp. families of newly convicted offenders) and how to get around Washington DC and find information relevant to their issues. Today the blog is locked as I put the finishing touches on it, and I also would like everyone to suggest ways to make it better once it is unlocked.
It is important to get more and more folks involved, each doing something, and it doesn't matter what that is, just get involved, and focus efforts on Washington DC, because whatever happens there trickles down to the states. The Adam Walsh Act began there and it is certainly affecting the states today, the Supplemental Guidelines is proof of that.
RSOL Conference: RSOL held their Conference in Washington DC last week and on Monday they were visiting a few lawmakers. See "UD study says state wastes millions of dollars on treating low-risk juvenile sex offenders." Norm Pattis, a Connecticut lawyer also attended the RSOL conference and summarized his thoughts "Sex Offenders, Lawyers and the Burden of a Voice." I'm sure when folks get back home from their trip to Washington DC, we will hear more reports.
SMART Office: On the 24th the SMART Office announced, 38 more states were granted extensions, they are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virgin Islands, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. They also claimed that 3 are in compliance, they are: Ohio, Delaware and Florida. They also mentioned that, 80 Tribes were granted extensions. See SMART Office Notice.Apparently failing to comply with the Adam Walsh Act classification scheme -100%- does not cause a state to be OUT of Compliance. Remember, the Ohio Supreme court has declared the classification scheme, as to certain offenders, invalid because it violates the classification level given those offenders -previously- by the courts.
Maine News: Apparently 400 registrants in Maine have been removed from their registry. See "More Than 400 Convicted Sex Offenders Now Off State Registry." I also noticed that "Maine" is not in the list of states that were granted an extension (see above) by the SMART Office. I can only guess that the SMART Office is looking to find a way to get the 400 back under SORNA's umbrella. But, AWA does have terms of registration, and those terms will end one day. Hopefully we will NOT see another retroactive application of AWA in some fashion to get folks back into that snare.
New Acronym: In a news release I found this "CNSORNA" which apparently is SORNA preceded by CN means Cherokee Nation. Cherokee Nation Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (“CNSORNA”). Now, if you noticed the SMART Office granted extensions to 80 Tribes, boy have we got a pile of acronyms to learn. One reason why I do not follow Tribes. Now, will each state begin to use similar coding ALSORNA, TXSORNA, MASORNA, etc.? I hope not.
New Research: This is an excellent paper by Dr. Levenson (and others) titled: "Residential Proximity to Schools and Daycares: An Empirical Analysis of Sex Offense Recidivism." The paper concludes "There was no significant relationship between reoffending and proximity to schools or daycares."
Have a great day and a better tomorrow.
eAdvocate
The Sentencing Project Unveils New Recidivism
6-29-2010 National:
The Sentencing Project is pleased to announce the publication of a first–of-its-kind comprehensive database, "State Recidivism Studies." The database provides references for 99 recidivism studies conducted between 1995-2009 in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
These studies have been produced by a variety of agencies, including departments of corrections, sentencing commissions, statistical analysis centers, and universities. The studies address issues including juvenile/adult status, race, gender, offense type, program intervention, and many others, and thus offer insights into the variety of factors that may affect recidivism outcomes.
Because of the diversity among the studies in methodology and definitions of recidivism, the measurements of recidivism rates are not necessarily comparable across jurisdictions. Overall, though, the studies provide insight into the variety of factors that affect program success for people sentenced to incarceration or community supervision. See ..State Recidivism Studies (PDF)..
June 28, 2010
Registed sex offender arrested on trespassing charges
I wonder what "rear of residence" actually means, in an alley behind property? Apparently that was not clear to the officer either, as he arrested him for "suspicison." Fear was caused by politicians, in reality.6-28-2010 Louisiana:
______, 42, ____, West Monroe, was arrested by a Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Saturday on suspicion of trespassing.
According to the arrest affidavit, the complainant stated he saw Bridges at the rear of his residence throwing garbage in his trash can.
The complainant said because Bridges is a registered sex offender, he feared for the safety of his three children, according to the report.
The deputy said Bridges admitted to being the yard and throwing trash in the complainant's trash can, officials stated.
He was taken to Ouachita Correctional Center and charged with trespassing. Bond was set at $200. ..Source.. Staff
June 27, 2010
Grisly attack on 9-year-old sparked Florida's effort
6-27-2010 Florida:
Jimmy Ryce, a 9-year-old from a nice neighborhood in Miami-Dade County, was walking home from his school bus stop in September 1995 when a truck blocked the sidewalk. A man took out a gun and forced Jimmy to go with him.
Jimmy was raped, beaten and fatally shot when he tried to escape. Handyman Juan Carlos Chavez confessed, was convicted in 1998 and was sentenced to death.
Friends and family remember Jimmy Ryce as a budding artist and a kid who loved baseball. But he'll also be remembered for the Jimmy Ryce Act, Florida's civil commitment law named for the youngster and passed in 1998.
The law allows civil confinement of "sexually violent predators," after their sentences have been served, at a secure facility where they can receive treatment until they are deemed to no longer be a threat to society. The law applies only to people who have been convicted of a sexually violent crime.
The Ryce Act works like this, according to the Department of Children and Families, which runs Florida's Sexually Violent Predator Program: When the prison term of someone who committed a sexual crime is nearing completion, DCF reviews the case. After interviews with mental health professionals, eligible prisoners are recommended for civil commitment. This requires the offender to be declared - at a civil trial or by voluntarily entering the program - a sexually violent predator likely to re-offend.
Such predators are housed at the year-old Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia, a five-acre $6 million facility that replaced the former center, a prison in rural DeSoto County, in 2009. GEO Care Inc. has contracted with the Department of Children and Families since 2006 to operate the center, the company's website shows.
As of June 22, there were 673 residents at the center, according to Suzonne M. Kline, director of DCF's Sexually Violent Predator Program, who responded by e-mail to questions from The Times-Union.
As in other such centers in the nation, the population of Florida's committed sexual predators has grown. At the end of fiscal year 2004-05, there were 491 residents. In five years, that number has grown by 182. With the new facility, capacity increased from 660 beds to 720, GEO Care notes.
And also like other centers, the cost is high. DCF pays $25,464,372 annually to GEO Care to run the facility, Kline said. The cost per resident per year is $36,890.55, not quite double what it costs to incarcerate an average inmate at one of Florida's prisons, according to the state Department of Corrections.
With the state budget in crisis, some question whether this is money well-spent. Others think such programs are critical to protect children.
Rep. Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville, and vice chairman of the Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, said any drive for efficiency has to be viewed in the prism of what the programs might prevent.
"From my experience, recidivism can end up being more costly, and that's not just monetary," said McBurney, a former prosecutor. "The impact of crime doesn't stop with a dollar sign, particularly with those crimes."
Rep. Lake Ray, R-Jacksonville, said the state should consider the value of the programs and make sure it's "not creating something that becomes, if you will, a prisoner welfare state."
He said how well the center works should be considered, particularly if offenders end up being released anyway.
"If there's not much of a success rate, then I'm not sure that we need to continue spending money on that," Ray said.
At least the graduation rate has improved greatly since The Times-Union reported in April 2005 that no residents had been released since the center opened in 1999 because the four-stage treatment program had no fourth stage and the third stage was incomplete.
Kline reports that 31 committed residents have been released by the court in the final phase of treatment, with 18 recommended by the program as having achieved maximum therapeutic benefit. ..Source.. Carole Fader
June 26, 2010
Sex Offenders, Lawyers and the Burden of a Voice
6-26-2010 Washington DC:
by Norm Pattis, from his blog: Defending Sex Crimes (If folks wish to respond to Mr. Pattis please visit his blog and respond there. Thank you. eAdvocate)
Almost every time I stand in the presence of a group of people to talk about sex offenses and accused sex offenders I face the scorn of those assembled. Few crimes are as reviled. But today was different. I stood in the auditorium of a church in Washington, D.C., and faced a friendly group. Imagine, a hundred or so folks looking upon me with approval.
I was a guest of the second annual conference on the reforming sex offender legislation sponsored by a group called, appropriately enough, Reform Sex Offender Legislation. It felt good to be among friends. I know the sorrow they and their families have faced in the relentless and indiscriminate prosecution of these cases.
One thing is abundantly clear: Our laws fail to discriminate between and among the various forms of sex offenses. There simply is a difference between a violent sexual offender and a young man who looked at a few pornographic images of children online or engaged in consensual sex with a young neighbor close in age. But the law requires a one-size-fits-all response to these offenses once a person is released from prison: requiring everyone to register as a sex offender is draconian.
I said as much and more to an audience already persuaded. They've lived on the front lines of this war against over-criminalization and hysteria. I felt today like a prosecutor: preaching to the choir.
At the end of my part of the presentation, someone asked what it would take to get a committee or group of lawyers together from around the country to serve as an intellectual catalyst for change. I told the speaker that I thought there was such support, although it might not yet have taken shape in the form of a formal committee. "You are closer than you think," I said. "You might just be the foot; and I might just be the ass."
I'm sitting on a train thinking about that remark. I've never really trusted movement lawyers. The law is not philosophy. Individual clients come to me and I do not want to be encumbered to anything than the very discrete and tangible interests of my client. No two clients are alike, each brings his or her own menu of issues to the table.
But I wonder, just now. I responded to the call to attend the event because I had seen one client after another socially decimated by the law's unfeeling and unthinking rigidity. I believe reform of sex offender laws is necessary. At this stage, I do not think that there is much the courts are willing and able to do. Most judges adopt a form of intellectual cowardice when things get tense: Like junior officers in the Nuremberg dock, they plead that they were just following orders when they mete out justice with a sledge hammer. They blame legislators for the rules they are sometimes ashamed to enforce.
I believe the front lines of reform will come in the state legislatures. That is where ordinary family members of those harmed by over-harsh laws can tell their stories to those with eyes open to the truth. We say of federalism that the states are laboratories of change. I believe this to be true. I do not believe the federal government is a progressive instrument for change: Its scope is so broad it panders to the lowest common denominator. John Walsh is a hero on the national set; I for one find the 25-year wake for his murdered son to be maudlin.
I don't know whether I am willing to join a committee of lawyers dedicated to changing the law. In confessing this, I acknowledge a certain moral and intellectual cop out. I left a promising academic career at its inception due to a certain epistemological weariness. If there were no larger truths, what was there to teach? The practice of law has liberated me, if not from the dark ghosts inhabiting a dark world, then at least I am liberated from the paralysis and seeming nihilism that comes of a too close familiarity with the leavings of what I sometimes feel is a spent Western intellectual heritage.
But the good people I saw in Washington, D.C., today issued a challenge that echoes. What can be done, they asked, about the suffering their families and friends endure? Implicit in their question was a request for help. I've some soul-searching to do. It's been perhaps too easy to sit on the sidelines and toss gratuitous scorn at visions of the good. Even if there is no certainly as to what goodness requires, that does not prohibit one from opposing unintended consequences resulting in something just this side of evil. I am not saying that sex offenders ought not to be punished; I am simply saying that not all offenses are alike. Voiceless people need others to speak for them.
Whether to become such a voice is a hard question to contemplate. ..Source.. Norm Pattis
UD study says state wastes millions of dollars on treating low-risk juvenile sex offenders
6-26-2010 Delaware:
An examination of Delaware's approach to juvenile sex offenders finds the need for reform. Research released today shows the system costs taxpayers millions each year, treating many kids as high risk who simply do not fall into that category, while distracting the state from the truly risky offenders.
University of Delaware professor Chrysanthi S. Leon, J.D., Ph.D., will speak about the overuse of sex offender registration and residency laws in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, June 26 in the opening session of the conference of the national group, Reform Sex Offender Laws.
On Monday June 28, Leon and others will lobby Sen. Tom Carper and other members of Congress to amend the federal Adam Walsh Act, which can withhold funding from states that do not comply with its terms. At noon, Leon will participate in a press conference across from the Hart Senate Office Building, 245 2nd Street, NE. Leon and Smith College professor David L. Burton, Ph.D., authored, “Net Widening in Delaware: The Overuse of Registration and Residential Treatment for Youth Who Commit Sex Offenses,” which will be published in an upcoming issue of the Widener Law Review.
Last year, Delaware spent more than $5.1 million to send 62 youths out of state for treatment (FY09). In FY04, that expenditure was $2.9 million. These costs, Leon and Burton say, can only be justified if the youths are serious offenders who cannot be treated in the community and pose high risk of re-offense. But, the Delaware Youth Needs Evaluation, included in the article, shows they are low-to-moderate risk.
Leon and Burton argue Delaware's compliance with the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act goes far beyond what is necessary. The unintended consequences of Delaware's registration laws are forcing the state to pay for unneeded treatment out of state. In total, Leon and Burton write, “the juvenile sex offender registry is the exact opposite of evidence-based corrections.”
They say the law needs revision, using methods proven effective in other states. Doing so would not entail new costs to the system. In fact, it would likely provide a cost-savings by properly focusing resources. ..Source.. Newark Post
Taxpayers paying for ineffective sex-offender treatment programs
This excellent article has one inaccuracy in it, it is, that the Federal Government has not spend a dime on any sex offender treatment (in-community treatment like there is for drug offenders), they will not even discuss the issue. Some states do recognize treatment programs and fund them, but not the federal government!6-26-2010 New York:
Federal and state governments have shelled out billions of dollars on programs to track, treat and punish sex offenders—even as those programs do little or nothing to prevent recidivism, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Charles Patrick Ewing told a crowd of about 100 attending his UBThisSummer lecture yesterday in Talbert Hall.
“My conclusion is thumbs down,” said Ewing, the Law School’s vice dean for legal skills. “We, the American and New York State taxpayers, are being hosed, to put it bluntly. We’re spending billions of dollars that largely go for cosmetic programs.”
Ewing’s talk, appropriately titled, “Perverted Justice: Sex Offenders and the Law,” focused on four issues: civil commitment laws, which allow states to lock up sex offenders indefinitely; Megan’s laws, which require sex offenders to register their address and other information for use in public databases; sentences for possession of child pornography that are so severe that they are sometimes harsher than sentences for actual molestation; and attitudes driving increasingly harsh punishments for solicitation of sex from minors over the Internet.
Under civil commitment laws, a judge or jury can order “sexually violent predators”—offenders who, in essence, are found likely to commit criminal sexual acts again—to remain in state custody against their will, even after finishing a criminal sentence. These laws allow states to commit offenders indefinitely to hospitals where they can receive treatment if they admit to their crimes, though many already have completed multiple treatment programs. (In California, Ewing said, three quarters of convicts in such facilities refuse treatment.)
The result is a system that is expensive but doesn’t work, Ewing said: “There are no data to establish that this treatment is effective in reducing recidivism.” New York State spends at least $225,000 on each hospitalized individual, more than five times what it costs to keep an inmate in state prison. And civil commitments, which states often apply to convicts sentenced long before those laws went into effect, raise legal questions—with the U.S. Constitution forbidding ex post facto laws and the trying or convicting of a defendant more than once using the same set of facts.
The hospitals involved in civil commitments are “really prisons,” Ewing said. “We have two in New York State now, and they’re more secure than Attica.”
The patients, Ewing said, are really “inmates.” “These are people who are being locked up. They’ve served their time. They’re being locked up. Why? Because, well, we think they’re going to commit future crimes.
“We don’t usually lock people up because we think they’ll commit crimes in the future,” Ewing added.
Megan’s laws, another costly regime, enlarge public bureaucracies while doing little to keep the public safe, Ewing said. In some cases where states have gone further and restricted where sex offenders can live, work and travel, recidivism rates have actually risen, Ewing said. Stringent regulations have pushed some sex offenders into the margins of society, with one colony of convicts residing beneath a highway bridge in Miami.
Ewing ended his lecture with a discussion of sentences for possession of child pornography and Internet solicitations of minors, pointing out the irony in the fact that sentences for these two types of crimes often exceed sentences for crimes including actual molestation, statutory rape and even homicide.
The mean federal sentence for possession of child pornography rose 443 percent between 1997 and 2007 to 91.3 months. While child pornography is repulsive, Ewing said, the severity of such sentences doesn’t necessarily make sense. He noted that, “You can kill somebody and get five, 10, 15 years.” Data indicate that consumers of child pornography are, generally, not hands-on offenders, Ewing said.
“America has declared war on sex offenders,” Ewing said, and in doing so, “We’ve gone off the deep end.” He explained that he is not against spending money on interventions that work—ones like an FBI operation that targets distributors of child pornography and has rescued more than 100 children who were being sexually abused. What he opposes, he said, is wasting taxpayer dollars on programs that are ineffective.
The UBThisSummer Lecture Series will take a break for the Independence Day holiday and return on July 7 with a lecture by Aaron Hughes, associate director of the Institute of Jewish Thought and Heritage. Hughes’ talk is titled “Building the Academic Study of Judaism in Buffalo.” ..Source.. CHARLOTTE HSU
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL): A review of the NEW SORNA Supplemental Guidelines
6-26-2010 National:
This is a pretty good review but notice how all points made are points that favor the actions of the USAG and the SMART Office.
No points of how the Supp. Guidelines affect registrants, or how the guidelines may affect any rights constitutional or otherwise. And, most importantly, no digging into the subtle workings of the proposed Supp. Guidelines.
While I do not knock NCSL, a independent agency, their review tells us why we need Watchdogs to protect or reveal the, affects and effects of Guidelines and Laws, that are enacted affecting registrants.
With that said, NCSL's review:Supplemental SORNA Guidelines
On May 14, 2010 the SMART Office issued supplemental guidelines which modify its original guidelines (issued July 2, 2008). All comments on these revised guidelines are due by August 13, 2010. Comments may be mailed to Linda M. Baldwin, Director, SMART Office, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, 810 7th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20531. Please reference OAG Docket No. 134. Comments may also be submitted electronically.
See Federal Register: May 14, 2010 (Volume 75, Number 93).
The following describes and distinguishes the supplemental guidelines from that of the original SORNA guidelines:
Juvenile Delinquency Adjudications
The supplemental guidelines give states discretion to exempt juvenile delinquency adjudications from public web site posting. Additionally, jurisdictions are not required to disclose adjudications to entities that include certain schools, public housing, social services and volunteer entities. However, the supplemental guidelines do not change SORNA requirements for registration of juveniles adjudicated delinquent for acts constituting serious sex offenses. And, their registration information must be shared with the national database, law enforcement, supervision agencies and registration authorities in other jurisdictions, as applicable.
The original SORNA guidelines require registration of juveniles who have committed certain serious or aggravated acts; and in addition require that jurisdictions post the young offender’s information on the state’s public web site, as well as provide for full disclosure of that information.
Internet Identifiers
The supplemental guidelines require rather than recommend that jurisdictions exempt sex offenders’ email addresses and other Internet identifiers from public web site posting. This change does not limit use of that information for law enforcement and supervision purposes; and does not limit the discretion of jurisdictions to include on public web sites functions that allow the public to ascertain whether a particular email address or Internet identifier is reported as that of a registered sex offender.
The original SORNA guidelines discouraged but did not disallow the inclusion of sex offenders’ Internet identifiers on the public web sites.
Interjurisdictional Tracking and Information Sharing
The supplemental guidelines expand required registration information to require offenders notify the registration jurisdiction at least 21 days in advance of international travel. The residence jurisdiction is then required to notify the U.S. Marshalls Service and must transmit the information to national databases, law enforcement and supervision agencies, and other jurisdictions as provided in the original guidelines. The supplemental guidelines reflect interagency work of federal agencies to develop a system for consistently identifying and tracking international travel or persons required to register as sex offenders. (Certain exceptions to the 21 day requirement are allowed for urgent, unexpected, emergency travel circumstances.)
The original SORNA guidelines require offenders to notify their residence jurisdiction of any planned travel outside of the United States; and further require that registered sex offenders inform residence jurisdictions about lodging at places away from their residences for seven days or more, regardless of whether it is the result of domestic or international travel.
Domestic Interjurisdictional Tracking
The supplemental guidelines clarify that jurisdictions must have a policy to regularly access the SORNA Exchange Portal, which provides for immediate sharing of information among jurisdictions with regard to changes or updates to offender registration information.
The original SORNA guidelines task the Attorney General with developing support software to facilitate an immediate exchange of information among jurisdictions. The SMART office has since created and maintains the SORNA Exchange Portal, which enabled the immediate exchange of information about registered sex offenders among the jurisdictions.
Acknowledgement Forms
The supplemental guidelines expand registration information to include the form signed by a sex offender acknowledging that he or she was advised of their registration obligations. This information supports jurisdictions’ enforcement of the registration requirement which under SORNA includes penalties for failure to comply.
The original SORNA guidelines provide that sex offenders are to be informed of their registration requirement and required to sign acknowledgement that this information has been provided upon initial registration.
Ongoing Implementation Assurance
The supplemental guidelines address substantial implementation with the stated requirement that laws and rules be accompanied by demonstration of those in practice. The supplement clarifies that the SMART office in reviewing compliance will undertake review of laws and policies, procedure manuals, description of infrastructure and technology resources, and information about personnel and budgetary measures relating to the operation of the jurisdiction’s registration and notification system. Also clarifies that jurisdictions that have substantially implemented SORNA have a continuing obligation to maintain their system’s consistency with current SORNA standards in order to be eligible for full Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) funding. Jurisdictions that do not receive JAG funding because of non-implementation of SORNA may regain eligibility for full funding in later program years by substantially implementing SORNA in such later years.
The original SORNA guidelines explain that the SMART Office will determine whether jurisdictions have substantially implemented the SORNA requirements in their programs and that jurisdictions are to provide submissions to SMART to facilitate this process.
Retroactive Classes
The supplemental guidelines modify and narrow retroactive registration requirement with regard to persons outside the justice system (that is, those not in prison, on probation, parole, supervised release) but who have a record of a previous sex offense that would constitute a present registration requirement under SORNA. Jurisdictions are required to register only those who reenter the system with a new felony conviction (described as one for which the statutory maximum penalty exceeds one year of imprisonment.). The supplemental guidelines do not modify requirements that apply to new criminal convictions for any sex offense, which independently carry a registration requirement under SORNA.
The original SORNA guidelines require jurisdictions to register sex offenders with pre-SORNA or pre-SORNA implementation sex offense convictions who remain in the system as prisoners, supervisees or registrants, or who reenter the system through a subsequent criminal conviction.
Newly Recognized Tribes
The supplemental guidelines allow Indian tribes that receive federal recognition following the enactment of SORNA a period of one year to elect whether to become a SORNA jurisdiction. Such decision to be a SORNA registration jurisdiction (rather than defer those responsibility to a state ) also provides for a period of three years for implementation with two possible one year extensions.
The original SORNA guidelines gave federally recognized tribes until July 27, 2007, to declare whether they would become a SORNA registration jurisdiction or delegate registration and notification functions to a state or states. ..Source.. by NCSL
June 25, 2010
Shred Your Sex Offender Map
6-25-2010 National:
If anything, the sex offender registry is making our kids LESS safe.
Recently I consulted my local Serial Killer Registry and found out I'm living next door to a guy who killed three lunchroom ladies when they refused to give him seconds on the chili!
Oh please. I'm kidding. There's no registry of murderers out there. There's no armed robber registry either. Not even one for drunk drivers. No, the only easily available registry for all Americans to consult is the Sex Offender Registry.
Because ex-sex offenders are so much scarier than murderers?
No, the reason there's now a sex offender registry in every state--most of these lists dating back only to the 1990s--is that sex offenders have become the focus of intense parental fear. Who could blame us moms and dads, when we hear about kiddie kidnappings 24/7 on the news? The problem is not with nervous parents. The problem is with the registries. Turns out, they're worse than useless.
They are making our kids LESS safe. How? Well, there are three big problems with the registry.
1. The first is that we have not decided, as a country, which crimes we really want to see registered. And so, in five states, a man can end up on the registry for having sex with a prostitute. In 13 states, it is a registerable offense to urinate in public, and in 32 states, it's just as bad to be caught streaking. Yes, streaking. That means that when we look at a little map of our neighborhood and it's covered with red “Sex Offender” dots, there's often no way of telling whether the guy down the block is a child rapist or a jerk wearing a headband (and nothing else), bent on re-living the Carter years.
Seeing a bunch of dots is enough to make us lock our kids inside, where they get fat, bored and addicted to "Halo 3," because we think it's "Halo 3" outside. Goodbye, any sense of community! Which is ironic because community--knowing and looking out for each other--is exactly what makes neighborhoods safer.
2. These lists waste our cops' time. Police are unable to concentrate on the very worst offenders when they have to keep track of ALL offenders, even the ones who once peed on a tree.
There are almost three quarters of a million people on the sex offender registries now. But according to a study done by the hardly soft-on-crime George Sex Offender Registration Review Board, only 5% of the 17,000 sex offenders in that state were “clearly dangerous” to children, and among them, only 100 could be classified as “predators.”
So here's an idea, says Adam Thierer, president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a market-oriented think tank: Why not make a “Scum of the Earth List” featuring only the scummy 5% and let the other 95% go streaking on their merry way? Save time! Save money! And, oh yeah: Save lives!
After all, maybe one of the reasons Jaycee Duggard was allegedly imprisoned for 18 years by a known sex offender was that an overburdened police force couldn't concentrate on creepy Phillip Garrido and the hut behind his house. They were too busy with the 100,000 other Californians on the registry.
This brings us to the third problem: The list keeps growing.
3. Perhaps the gravest danger posed by the Sex Offender Registry is how very easily your own child could end up on it. Consider the case of Ricky.
Ricky was 16 when he met a girl named Amanda at a teen club. She said she was about his age. They hit it off, started dating and ended up having sex, twice. A while later, Amanda ran away from home. When she thought the better of it, she went to the police. They questioned her and found out about Ricky.
Amanda, as it turns out, was only 13. So when the police tracked down Ricky and he admitted they'd had sex, he was arrested. Though Amanda's parents did not want to press charges, the district attorney did. In the end, Ricky took a plea to avoid jail time. Now he is registered as a sex offender. For life. There are thousands and thousands of teens like him on the list.
It is hard to get anything--an education, housing, job, even a pew in church (because offenders are forbidden to step foot anywhere children congregate)--when you're a registered offender.
An 18-year-old senior who has sex with his freshman girlfriend can end up on the list. A 19-year-old who sleeps with his underage sweetheart can end up there, too, even if they plan to get married. In a blink, boys go from normal, horny teens to official sex offenders on the registry--a registry that sounds so helpful.
But is all screwed up. ..Source..
Court: refusal to identify law applies to passengers
Interesting case.6-25-2010 Indiana:
Although state law allows police to request identification from passengers inside a car that they’ve stopped, two Indianapolis officers shouldn’t have arrested a man for refusing to identify himself when there was no reasonable suspicion he’d done anything wrong.
The Indiana Court of Appeals addressed that issue in a six-page opinion today in Adam Starr v. State of Indiana, No. 49A04-0912-CR-677, which overturned a ruling by Marion Superior Judge David Certo.
In September 2009, officers from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department arrested Adam Starr for refusing to identify himself, a Class C misdemeanor as defined by Indiana Code 34-28-5-3.5. Two officers pulled over a vehicle driven by Starr’s girlfriend, who’d made an illegal turn. After determining her identity, the officers questioned Starr about his identity. He denied having any ID, claimed he could not remember his Social Security number, and said his name was “Mr. Horrell.”
After police found a photo ID in the vehicle, he claimed the person pictured was his “identical cousin.” Officers determined his real identify and that an active protective order prohibited any contact between Starr and his girlfriend, and police arrested him on charges of privacy invasion and refusal to identify himself. Starr was acquitted on the privacy invasion charge, but convicted on the refusal charge and received an eight-day sentence in the Marion County Jail.
On appeal, he argued that the statute criminalizing the refusal to identify oneself is directed toward the driver of a vehicle stopped for a traffic offense and not to the passengers.
The appellate court determined that the legislature had not categorically excluded passengers from the statute’s scope and that police are able to detain passengers in certain circumstances during and as a result of those stops. But this case didn’t present circumstances, such as resistance, that allowed the police conduct.
Though most will comply with an officer’s request, the police power to request and obtain this identification isn’t unlimited, the appellate court pointed out.
“In the context of a traffic stop for a vehicular violation, the Good Faith Belief statute provides for detention of a person who, in the ‘good faith’ belief of the officer, ‘has committed an infraction or ordinance violation,'" Judge L. Mark Bailey wrote.
“The Refusal to Identify Self statute then criminalizes the refusal to comply with an officer’s lawful request under the statute authorizing detention. In this instance, although Starr was ‘stopped’ when the vehicle in which he was a passenger was ‘stopped,’ there is no showing that Starr was stopped as a consequence of any conduct on his part. There was no reasonable suspicion that he had committed an infraction or ordinance violation, giving rise to an obligation to identify himself upon threat of criminal prosecution.”
As a result, he didn’t fall within the scope of the state statute and his conviction must be reversed, the court ruled. ..Source..
ACTION ALERT: Concerns with Supp. Guidelines - Section IV (Retroactive Classes)
UPDATED: 6-25-20106-25-2010 Washington DC:
In our original announcement of these NEW Supplemental Guidelines, the Juvenile Justice site said, that:3) Gives jurisdictions discretion to modify the retroactive registration requirement to apply to new felony convictions only.This is questionable, below we will show what the NEW SG actually covered.
Here is the FULL text of the NEW Proposed Supplemental Guidelines in the Federal Register 5-14-2010. We will address Sec. IV Retroactive Classes based on the following from the NEW SG.
NEW Supplemental Guidelines:Section VI Retroactive Classes Page-5 Supp. Guideline.
SORNA’s requirements apply to all sex offenders, regardless of when they were convicted. See 28 CFR 72.3 (Right hand column). ........
These supplemental guidelines accordingly are modifying the requirements for substantial implementation of SORNA in relation to sex offenders who have fully exited the justice system, i.e., those who are no longer prisoners, supervisees, or registrants.It will be sufficient if a jurisdiction registers such offenders who reenter the system through a subsequent criminal conviction in cases in which the subsequent criminal conviction is for a felony, i.e., for an offense for which the statutory maximum penalty exceeds a year of imprisonment. This allowance is limited to cases in which the subsequent conviction is for a non-sex offense.
As noted above, a later conviction for a sex offense independently requires registration under SORNA, regardless of whether it is a felony or a misdemeanor.
This allowance only establishes the minimum required for substantial implementation of SORNA in this context.Jurisdictions remain free to look more broadly and to establish systems to identify and register sex offenders who reenter the justice system through misdemeanor convictions, or even those who do not reenter the system through later criminal convictions but fall within the registration categories of SORNA or the jurisdiction’s registration law.
Sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees, so, the two "White-background" insets above are actually continuations of the sentence above each. No guideline is more egregious than this one, as you will see. This one amounts to discriminatory treatment of sex offenders, handling sex offenders differently than non sex offenders under similar circumstances (felonies and misdemeanors).
Lets take this from the top down, citing from the SG:1) SORNA is applicable to everyone ever convicted of a sex offense;
2) This guideline separates sex offenders into TWO Groups: A) Those who are no longer prisoners, supervisees or registrants -AND- B) Those who are prisoners, supervisees, or registrants. Note: SORNA actually does this. 42 USC 16913 (d) and (b) respectively.
3) Effectively this guideline addresses "WHEN" Group-A should be registered. Group-A are those no longer under the umbrella of the criminal justice system, at the time when SORNA was enacted. Note: The term "criminal justice system" is used in the SG, and SORNA is considered part of the criminal justice system, also found in the SG.
4) This guidelines establishes the "Minimum" States must follow to be considered "In-Compliance" by the SMART Office. But, also allows States to be more strict if they chose to be. i.e., the theory that, SORNA is the floor not the ceiling.
Why do we consider this SG most egregious?Discriminatory Treatment (NEW Felony Offenses):Former sex offenders, no longer under the umbrella of the criminal justice system (Group-A), will have to register when they commit ANY type of NEW FELONY. In essence this says, these persons are a danger to society because they have committed two or more felonies, and must be watched and monitored.
However, as to any other type of felony offender, when they commit TWO FELONIES or more that are -non sex offenses-, they are not considered a danger to society and do not have to be watched or monitored.
The key to that recidivist discussion is, the guideline is based on ANY TYPE OF FELONY, not a felony sex offense.
Discriminatory Treatment (NEW Misdemeanor Offenses):Former sex offenders, no longer under the umbrella of the criminal justice system (Group-A), will have to register when they commit a new misdemeanor -sex Offense-. In essence this says, these persons are a danger to society because they have committed two or more -sexually motivated crimes- misdemeanor following a felony offense (and maybe misdemeanor -non sex offense- following misdemeanor sex offense [SG not clear on this construction]), and must be watched and monitored.
However, as to any other type of former felony offender, when they commit a new misdemeanor in the same vein as the earlier felony, they are not considered a danger to society and do not have to be watched or monitored.
Rubbing salt into the wound:
Group-A former offenders, since they are no longer under the criminal justice system, it is very unlikely they will see these changes to the guidelines and have no opportunity to provide input to assert their positions! Another one of those HIDDEN Adam Walsh Act entrapments. If these persons knew of this, it may keep them from committing a new offense.
Accordingly, it is up to those who do see these new supplemental guidelines to assert issues for them. Everyone, former sex offenders -in the system- AND those who are -no longer in the system- must stand up for the rights of ALL. Remember, one day the term of registration -for everyone- will come to an end and release folks from registration, bar a retroactive application of a new guideline in the future to the contrary.In fact, this should upset anyone TODAY and everyone should demand that, the guidelines treat everyone who is no longer under the criminal justice system -including those who have completed registration terms-, and DO NOT draw them back into SORNA based on non sex offenses! Or, in the alternative, treat ALL types of offenders like sex offenders are treated, and make them register as well.
Recently in Maine some 400 registrants were released from their requirements to register, likewise in Ohio the Attorney General is right now putting old classifications back into place based on the Ohio supreme court decision, some may not longer have to register. These persons, and others like them, will again have to register under SORNA if they commit a NEW non sexual Felony or if they commit a new sexual misdemeanor, according to this new guideline. And we have yet to find out if this SG change will be applied retroactively. Need anymore be said as to why everyone needs to address this supplemental guideline change?
Accordingly, an appropriate comment might go like this:OAG Docket No. 134
To Whom It May Concern:
The supplemental guideline (IV. Retroactive Classes) brings sex offenders who are no longer in the criminal justice system, which includes former sex offenders whose registration terms have expired, back under SORNA requirements, if they commit a NEW felony or misdemeanor, including those which are not sex offenses.
It is discriminatory to force sex offenders to return to the criminal justice system (which includes SORNA requirements [see SG]), based on NEW non sex offenses, when non sex offenders are not required to return to the criminal justice system (in any fashion similar to SORNA), based on NEW non sex offenses.
Clearly the Supplemental Guideline (IV. Retroactive Classes) is discriminatory, based on felonies and misdemeanors, and violates equal protection under the law.
Thank you.WHERE TO POST COMMENTS:
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